Experts are issuing stern warnings about business support for Trump – it could
backfire badly and endanger democracy
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, a growing number of billionaires, tech
titans and venture capitalists are backing Donald Trump’s campaign for
president, among them Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of Blackstone, the world’s
largest private-equity fund, Steve Wynn, the casino tycoon, Bill Ackman, the
hedge fund manager, and Marc Andreessen, a leading venture capitalist.
But many business school professors and historians are issuing stern warnings
about this business support for Trump, saying that backing him could backfire
badly for business and endanger America’s democracy. These professors caution
that corporate America – along with everyone else – should be hugely concerned
about a candidate who has talked of being a dictator on day one, terminating the
constitution, and weaponizing the justice department to exact revenge against
his critics.
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Tag - US news
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Also signed by the EU, US and Israel, the declaration aims to mitigate the
threats that AI may pose to human rights, democracy and the rule of law
The UK government has signed the first international treaty on artificial
intelligence in a move that aims to prevent misuses of the technology, such as
spreading misinformation or using biased data to make decisions.
Under the legally binding agreement, states must implement safeguards against
any threats posed by AI to human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The
treaty, called the framework convention on artificial intelligence, was drawn up
by the Council of Europe, an international human rights organisation, and was
signed on Thursday by the EU, UK, US and Israel.
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Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter, I and many others have been looking for
alternatives. Who wants to share a platform with the likes of Andrew Tate and
Tommy Robinson?
I considered leaving Twitter as soon as Elon Musk acquired it in 2022, just not
wanting to be part of a community that could be bought, least of all by a man
like him – the obnoxious “long hours at a high intensity” bullying of his staff
began immediately. But I’ve had some of the most interesting conversations of my
life on there, both randomly, ambling about, and solicited, for stories: “Anyone
got catastrophically lonely during Covid?”; “Anyone hooked up with their
secondary school boy/girlfriend?” We used to call it the place where you told
the truth to strangers (Facebook was where you lied to your friends), and that
wide-openness was reciprocal and gorgeous.
It got more unpleasant after the blue-tick fiasco: identity verification became
something you could buy, which destroyed the trust quotient. So I joined the
rival platform Mastodon, but fast realised that I would never get 70,000
followers on there like I had on Twitter. It wasn’t that I wanted the attention
per se, just that my gang wasn’t varied or noisy enough. There’s something eerie
and a bit depressing about a social media feed that doesn’t refresh often
enough, like walking into a shopping mall where half the shops have closed down
and the rest are all selling the same thing.
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Fall overnight comes after it shrinks by $279bn on Tuesday in biggest one-day
drop in value by US company
* Business live – latest news
Shares in the AI chip designer Nvidia have continued to slide overnight after a
report said US authorities were ramping up an investigation into whether the
company had breached competition laws.
The company’s shares fell 2.4% in after-hours trading, exacerbating a near-10%
drop in the regular trading session that slashed its value by $279bn (£212bn) to
$2.6tn, marking the largest one-day drop in history for a US company.
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Two men flew between New York and London at three times the speed of sound. No
other aircraft has since been as fast as the Blackbird SR-71, explains crew
member Noel Widdifield
On 1 September 1974 two men made the fastest ever journey between New York and
London. The astonishing trip – at three times the speed of sound – took less
than two hours and set a record that still stands 50 years later.
Even the mighty Concorde, which set the record for the fastest commercial
transatlantic flight in 1996, straggled in almost an hour behind.
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Groundbreaking bill aims to reduce potential AI risks – requiring model testing
and disclosure of safety protocol
A California bill that would establish first-in-the-nation safety measures for
the largest artificial intelligence systems cleared an important vote Wednesday.
The proposal, aiming to reduce potential risks created by AI, would require
companies to test their models and publicly disclose their safety protocols to
prevent the models from being manipulated to, for example, wipe out the state’s
electric grid or help build chemical weapons – scenarios experts say could be
possible in the future with such rapid advancements in the industry.
The measure squeaked by in the state assembly Wednesday and now faces a final
vote in the state senate, where it has passed once already, before it heads to
the governor’s desk for his signature, though he has not indicated his position
on it. Governor Gavin Newsom then has until the end of September to decide
whether to sign it into law, veto it or allow it to become law without his
signature. He declined to weigh in on the measure earlier this summer but had
warned against AI overregulation.
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Chipmaker, third most valuable company in world, records $30.04bn in revenue,
showing AI demand continues to rise
Chipmaker Nvidia reported its latest financial results on Wednesday, recording
$30.04bn in revenue over the past three months – a 122% jump from the year prior
– and showing that artificial intelligence investment mania shows no signs of
cooling.
Analysts had anticipated about $28.7bn in revenue. Shares slid more than 3% in
after-hours trading.
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Meta boss regrets bowing to government power and says he would not make the same
choices today
The Meta boss, Mark Zuckerberg, has said he regrets bowing to what he claims was
pressure from the US government to censor posts about Covid on Facebook and
Instagram during the pandemic.
Zuckerberg said senior White House officials in Joe Biden’s administration
“repeatedly pressured” Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to
“censor certain Covid-19 content” during the pandemic.
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